Another comparison

Here I am at 11 weeks



and again at 4 1/2 months



and today at 7 months, 52 pounds



I think I'm looking more like a dog instead of a pup, doncha think?

Went hiking this morning

Went out for a 3 mile walk this morning. It started out cool, but got hot pretty quick! We worked on some commands too. I will admit that on the way back I protested a little. I mean come on, it's freak'n hot out there and I couldn't even see the house.

I came up with a little tune to pass the time, it went like this:

*Sung to the great tune of the late John Denver*

"Take me home, Country roads
To cool air and my bone
Morris County, Central Kansas
Take me home, Country roads"



I know you'll be singing it on your next walk!


Did I mention it was HOT?

Ahoy Mates!

The humans decided to take me boating this morning. I was very excited. They go fairly often and always come home talking about how much fun they have.

We loaded up the boat with all the goodies and headed out to the Council Grove Lake. TBG backed the boat into the water and unloaded. Me and SWMBO stayed in the truck and drove it up to the parking area. When we got down to the dock, TBG was waiting for us. It took me a minute to figure out the proper procedure for getting into the boat, but it was easy after a little thought!

TBG backed us away from the dock and off we went. We headed straight to some calm water where TBG stopped the boat and held a short classroom session. He explained to me the "safety rules". No jumping into the water, no eating the seat vinyl, no barking at other boaters and no PEEING in the boat! He got irritated with me when I started laughing at his rules.



We rode around a little more and that was fun because I had my fur in the wind.



I thought this was a nice pic of me and Deb



We stopped and just floated around, listening to some quality tunes when I went up to TBG and told him I had "to go". He just repeated the rule and I looked dumbfounded at him; "what do you mean no peeing in the boat? what am I supposed to do?"



I told him if I could drive the boat then we'd have a deal!



We headed over to a dock and Deb took me onto shore and let me take care of business. Went back to the boat and I started "hounding" TBG to drive. He finally relented since he had agreed to the bet and I got to drive for just a short while.....that was a blast!!



Captain Ansel and his steed






After that I was pretty hot, so TBG donned his ski jacket and jumped in. I went to the swim platform and jumped in with him. Had fun swimming around the boat and then decided I'd had enough and climbed back onto the platform (with a little help), shook off the water and hopped back into the boat.



I was getting tired after all that swimming and driving, so I just laid down with my water toy.



and then it was time for some lunch and a much deserved nap!



We headed back to the dock and loaded the boat back onto the trailer. TBG let me pull the boat up to the staging area where I let him finish up. Arrived back at the house and as soon as I hit "post", I'm gonna take me a nice long Siesta.

Dear Puppy Program Manager:

You might remember me, I don't know. My name is Ansel III. I weigh 52 lbs now. I have been trying to learn the "car" command and have run into a wall. If the humans use a 12" platform: no problem! I will jump right in when they say "car". I also have no problem getting into the side doors, but when those humans take away the platform, well, it is like they are asking me to jump the moon! What am I--a cow? (Think about that one--you'll get it). They've tried removing the kennel and putting down a big rug so I won't slide, and they've used tasty treats to entice me in. But, hey, I am just not going to attempt this dangerous and scary feat without a platform!

I mean, the bumper is 24" off the ground, which is the same height as the short fence I have up in the backyard. Yea, so I jumped that fence when my ball bounced over it one time, but I can't convince the humans that it just isn't the same thing! So what that SWMBO has to lift me into the car every time we go to K-State? I mean, really, is that too much to ask for someone as cute and cuddly as me?

So Dear PPM, please settle this dispute with the humans. Should I be jumping in and out of the blue bomb at this point in my young life?

Sincerely,

Scared-to-Jump-in-Council-Grove

P.S. I have attached a picture of the car.




Dear Scared-to-Jump-in-Council-Grove,

I am here to tell you that the car is not too high for you. We see puppies like you all the time that don't like to make the effort...or they don't think they can jump that high, even though they can.

I suggest that you instruct your humans to put your food into the car every night. You will build a positive association and WANT to jump into the car--won't you?

I also recommend that you practice a lot of jumps of varying heights on different surfaces. Don't be scared; just keep practicing!

Your-PPM-Who-Has-Your-Best-Interests-At-Heart

Thursday! Friday! Saturday!

Who knew so much could happen in three days, especially after such a long hiatus? I have so much to share, I am going to have to take it day-by-day.

THURSDAY
Me and TBG had to work out our schedule again, and get back in the groove (he IS a product of the 70s you know). We went to puppy class also and it was great! I learned so much--especially about having a "gentle mouth". This is definitely something that I need to work on. I know that Jeb was often given treats as a part of the therapy sessions that he did with clients--all under SWMBO's close supervision to ensure he didn't gain weight or get "people food", of course. We also practiced lots of commands with lots of distractions. I was proud of myself. I think the humans were proud of me too!

FRIDAY
I got to go to K-State again with SWMBO. I met lots of people, rode the elevator, and even conquered the bathroom stall (it is NOT what you are thinking!). That has been quite a challenge because they are so small. I kinda didn't understand the whole turning around thing. Now I get it, and even started to understand the concept of "under" with the sinks.

A nice surprise at the office was that there were bookmarks waiting for me--with me on them! I'm a star. One of the nice people I met last week had taken some pictures of me and made me these nice bookmarks to share with my adoring fans. I'm even on HER bog! Check me out at http://marysbeagooddogblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/sweetest-fridays-and-service-dogs.html

I did really, really good for about six hours, but then disintegrated when we stopped at Pet* to pick up more puppy chow. Oh well!

SATURDAY
Saturday was the bestest ever! The humans worked outside most of the day, so I practiced my quiet kennel time--in the air conditioning, of course! Then, we went to the Duck Race. This is a fundraiser where folks can "buy" a rubber duck and then they (that's the ducks, not the humans) are all released into the Neosho River and the first one to the finish line wins. The humans had two ducks in the race (and they didn't win). However it was a hoot--wait, make that a quack--watching all of the goings-on. I must tell you, in complete confidence, that I received so many compliments on my behavior! In fact, I did so awesomely fantastically well that the humans thought I might be ready for my first restaurant experience. I knew it would be cool inside, and I was hot, hot, hot, so it sounded good to me.

Well, the humans said they supposed they could take me to the local restaurant and force themselves to eat homemade pie so that I could benefit--aren't they the greatest, most unselfish humans ever? SWMBO had lemon meringue and TBG apple with homemade whipped cream. I had some trouble with figuring out how to fit under the table at first, and still wanted to indulge in my little hoovering behavior--well, geez, the humans were eating--why shouldn't I?--but generally, the humans were pleased. They even got into a conversation with two very nice gentlemen in the next booth, and ended up talking about someone they all knew--one of Jeb's favorite humans EVER!--an older adult who has passed on. It really made me sit up and take notice (not literally, as I was in a "down").

Sure hope I can live up to all of the Jeb-this and Jeb-that talk that I am always hearing! Anyway, see pictures of my adventures below!

Me at K-State (Last Week)




The Ducks Are Coming!




Self-Portrait


Tired, Hot and at the Restaurant





The Pie The Humans Forced Themselves to Eat


Me and One of My Humans

Didya Miss Me?

Sorry, all, that it has been so long between posts! The humans took some time off (without me! imagine!) which meant my routine has been disrupted. Sad to say, there is nothing exciting to report! However, puppy class is tonight and there are plans, I hear, to attend the Duck Race in Council Grove on Saturday. So, my adoring fans, just think of this past week as a long commercial!

OK, OK, SWMBO says there is something that you might be interested in, even though it has nothing to do with me--while we were gone, owlets appeared! At least, one owlet...not sure how may are up there in the owl box. SWMBO didn't want to take a chance on disturbing everyone. She could only see the shadow of one, but there may be more...here's a picture of one of the owls from last year...

Just catching up

Thought I'd get in a post before TBG shuts down the computer.

Had a great time at puppy class last night, played with the other pups and got handled by some of the other owners. Here are a couple of pics.





I went to work with Deb at K-State again today. Met lots of new people and got to work on my commands. It sure is tiring going to work, I can see why SWMBO's eyelids are half shut when she comes home.

Past, Present, Future....

You remember that I just talked about the wonderful time we had at the pool party...the humans were rehashing it earlier, and were talking about the symbolism of the afternoon. I wasn't sure what they meant, at first. What I gather is that our hosts first met Jeb way back in the day. They learned about service and skilled companion dogs from him. Eventually, they decided to bring a CCI dog into their own home, for Luke. That's Benita.

Well, I met Luke for the first time at the pool party, and we got along famously, as you can see by the photo.

Luke really helped out with my training that day. He'd throw the toy into the pool for me and helped me work on controlling my excitable greetings and excess energy. So, because of his experience with Benita, he was helping to train me! The past (Jeb) merged with the present (Benita) and flowed into the future (me). I guess it kinda meant something big to SWMBO and TBG.

What's really weird is how similar my picture with Luke is to Jeb's famous one that was used in one of the CCI calendars and in the book "Love Heels"...when SWMBO figured that out, there were a lot of tears...jeez! It's hard to be me, sometimes (do you know they call me "young Skywalker"?)

Update to previous post

Just a quick update to Ansel's pool post. No sooner than he finished typing, he parked his behind on his bed and it was lights out.....just that fast!

Pool Party!

As I noted earlier, we were going to a pool party today. Let me first take a moment to thank our generous hosts: they are the best friends a pup could have!

We drove to the big city and arrived at their house. I met Benita first since she is a skilled companion dog from CCI. We had a blast racing around the house and playing tug-o-war!





Then Brie (CCI facility dog) showed up and we had a three-way chase fest going on. We kind of got a little too rambunctious, so the humans took us outside.

Lo and behold, there it was....a magnificent clear blue pool. At first I was a little leery, being used to lake and pond water (that you can't see into), but after one splash I was hooked. I must have swam (swum?) a hundred miles today. It was so much fun, I hardly wanted to get out!

Belle arrived and there was more swimming and chasing than you could shake a stick at. Belle, Benita and myself would take turns getting out of the water and shaking all over Brie (he's chicken of the water). We taunted him pretty hard, but he took it quite well and didn't get too upset at us.

I paid close attention to how well Benita swam. I think at one point she must have been an Olympic gold medalist, cause she looked like Michael Phelps in the water.

Benita's human gave us a show on the slide and then did some awesome cannonballs. He also threw the water toys for us.....a lot, it was a great day!

Here's a shot of me and Benita in the pool.



I think it is time...time for a loooong catnap!

This week's happenings

Wow, it's been a week since I posted, sorry about that!

Nothing too special to talk about till Thursday's puppy class. I missed out on last week's class from the bad reaction to my meds (see earlier post), so I was happy to be back into the swing of things. We arrived early as usual and took care of business. Once inside, other pups started arriving, they kept coming and kept coming! It was puppy heaven, I can't even remember how many, but it was a lot.

Met a new Retriever pup and a Lab pup. We got some good playtime in before class. During class Deb really worked on all my commands while I had lots of distractions. I did pretty well, but was quite interested in the Retriever and Lab pups. My Bichon buddies were there as well and everyone looked as if they had doubled in size!

TBG did manage to get a picture of me with Libby, but his camera phone kinda sucks.





We're going to head out later and drive to Topeka where we'll meet up with some fellow CCI dogs (Bonita and Brie) and my play buddy Belle for some hot pool action. I finally get to go swimming in CLEAR water, woooo hoooooo!! Hopefully TBG will get off his large rear end and take some "quality" pictures of the day's fun.

Until the next post, Ansel here signing arf.


I should be a stand up comedian!

My 4th of July Weekend

I recuperated from my "sickness" and was ready for a fun weekend.

It started raining Saturday morning, so I was stuck inside and quickly became bored. It continued to rain the rest of the day and I also continued to be bored!

Sunday morning, I woke up and........it was still raining. What the heck, I thought to myself. What good is a holiday weekend if you're stuck inside the entire time? Well, the day wore on and so did the rain. SWMBO and TBG decided I had been cooped up long enough, so they took me into a pet store in Manhattan for puppy play time.
Now that was some FUN....FINALLY!! There were Rottweiler and German Shepard pups (youngsters), a Terrier and one of the young Bichons from puppy class. The best of all was the Pit Bull that was my age. Boy, did we have some fun! We were romping around and playing so much the little Rotty got wound up and started barking at us. Finally, I wasn't bored anymore. We played until I had no more energy and just plopped my butt down and rested. Sure beats laying around the house and working on my commands!

Here's a pic of me and the PB.






Today (Monday), I woke up and .....you guessed it, it was RAINING. For crying out loud, does this stuff ever stop? Deb decided it would be a good time to work on my commands in the rain. We packed up the blue bomb and headed into Council Grove. Drove to the river walk and headed out. As you can see, I was paired with the Chiquita Banana spokesperson for this endeavor (LMBO).



Here's another picture of me and the Banana after an hour of walking in the rain. I think it's obvious that I was ready to go.

Here it is, 4th of July weekend

[ATTENTION: RATED G (for GROSS!) Read at your own risk.]

and I've been feeling bad! I've added a few lb's the last few weeks and am at the weight where I needed to move up to a full heartworm pill. Apparently, that did not quite agree with my digestive system and I, uhhhhh, well.......had an "explosive" reaction to it (if ya know what I mean). It kinda makes that oil rig blowout seem more like a pin hole leak in a pool.

I felt really bad and embarrassed about the whole situation, but Mark and Deb were quite understanding (and concerned). They had a talk with my vet and it seems that sometimes us puppies have "that type" of reaction to the heartworm pills. My vet said if it happens again that we will need to change to a different type of heartworm pill. My reaction to that was "IF IT HAPPENS AGAIN!? What the heck are you talking about!? I don't want to go through THAT again!!!"

I missed my puppy class last night because of all this, and I sure miss not seeing all of the other puppies. I mean, how is a guy supposed to progress if I'm always at home?

Here's a pic of me while I was recuperating. I told them I didn't want any pics of me like that, but they're just humans; they never listen. They took the picture as I was checking my blood pressure.

Thought we'd try out the latest puppy raising tip!

Today it was HOT, something around the temp of the Sun HOT, so we thought we'd try out the latest tip to come down the pike. We filled Ansel's pool up and practiced sits, downs, stands and walking through. It was too small to work the side and heel commands, looks like that'll wait for the lake.

I think he rather enjoyed it and when we "released" him, he plopped down and just laid there!!

My First Day

Well, it happened...it really happened! SWMBO said that I did so well at puppy class, that it was time to start acclimating me to the work place. So, we loaded up this morning and went to campus! SWMBO said I did really, really, really, really well. I met lots of folks--most of them were friends of Jeb--so they understood service dog protocol and let SWMBO explain proper protocol and such. I'm still working on my licking (I should say everyone else is working on it as they did good about removing themselves when I'd go to lick a hand or finger). I didn't even have many excitable greetings!


It WAS a little sad leaving TBG this morning, though. Goodbye Yoda!


At least I had a place to take a nap.


But, I got bored after a while and had to find something to do.

Puppy Class Round 2

Well, here I am, back at puppy class! The new class started up tonight in Manhattan. Met some new friends; there were 5 Bichon Frise that were all litter mates, and boy were they cute! There was also a Shih Tzu, Jack Russel and a (female, wawawah) Golden Retriever.

I had lots of distractions with all of those younger pups around so Deb practiced my commands quite a bit. I think I did pretty good most of the time, except when the Golden was trying to get my attention. Did I mention she was a cutie?

Here's a pic of me and the Bichons.




One was fascinated with my tail!




SWMBO (Deb) handed out my business cards to all of the Bichons, so they could see these pics if they wanted. Boy, that is kinda embarrassing, ya' know? But anyway, the web site for Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) is http://www.CCI.org. Learn more about me, if ya wanna!

Run-Shunga And All That

Woke up and headed into town for Run-Shunga! That's a 1.5 mile walk that TBG (The Big Guy) and SWMBO (She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed) signed up for as part of WaShunga Days in Council Grove. We arrived in time for the flag-raising ceremony, and I was able to listen to the band, complete with tuba! I met the cutest little guy there--a toddler--and he was all over me! I did ok, though. TBG and SWMBO saw lots of friends there, and I even was able to say hello to one of my all-time favorite humans, Mona--my vet!

Did I mention it was hot, even at 8am?

I managed the entire 1.5 miles. The only thing that tripped me up--no, it wasn't the runners, or the baby carriages, or the other dogs--but a rubber mat that was covering up some electrical cords. It had holes in it and it kind of looked like a grate. I don't know why it scared me at first. Anyway, SWMBO and TBG wouldn't let me just jump over it, which is what I wanted to do. They made me go over it and over it and over it until I realized it wasn't a big deal! We conquered that, but it did mean we lost the rest of the pack and brought up the rear!

After the walk, we rested a bit and then walked up and down Main Street with all of the food stands, supersoaker dunk tanks, etc. We were supposed to leave before the parade started, but we got caught. The humans didn't think I should be at a parade, so they turned the air conditioner on inside the car and I got to rest in my crate while they waited out the parade. I was glad too, because I was TIRED.

You'd think that would be enough for one day, but we went back into town in the afternoon for the Duck Race. We didn't know it had been canceled because the river level was too high due to all of the recent rain. So, we just walked around some more and SWMBO bought a nice cool lemonade and I got an ice cube or two.

We met so many people and the humans were talking non-stop about CCI and handing out my cards. I hope some of the new friends that I met are reading this! Howdy!

Last time I open my Yapper

Well, I came to a realization tonight. That would be to keep my mouth shut if I get excited about something!
If you read my post earlier today, I was pretty excited about receiving my "real" cape, that show of exuberance came back to bite me in the rear. TBG (The Big Guy) and Deb decided that it was a GREAT idea to take me with them into town to pick up the registration packets for tomorrows big walk.

What an evening that turned out to be! We started off at the Dairy Queen where we sat at the outdoor tables and watched the traffic pass by. I was pretty good, but noticed it was rather warm out. We then headed downtown past the river walk and to the stores. We met up with Matt and Sarah, who were having a dinner date on Main Street.
We then started out and met TBG's Chiropractor and his girlfriend. After that, it became a blur of kids, teens, strollers, dogs and adults. I've never seen so many people. There were oh so many wonderful smells of waffle cones. elephant ears, corn on the cob and corn dogs..............sorry, I had to wipe the drool off my mouth.

We finally made it to the registration area and picked up our paperwork. Headed back to the car (which I was glad to see) and TBG fired up the AC for me. I think I'll turn in early, it appears I'm gonna have a long and fun filled day tomorrow.

We met so many people I didn't have time to take any pictures, so I had Mark take one of me as we walked back to the car. You'll notice the tongue hanging out, did I mention it was HOT?

The new cape is here, the new cape is here!!

Look what the postman just brought!

My new cape came today, just in time too. TBG, Deb and yours truly are doing the Washunga Days walk for charity tomorrow morning in Council Grove! I'll be a "hot" dog sport'n my new duds. We're going tonight to pick up the registration packet and check in, then tomorrow we have to be at the start by 8am.

Should be a lot of fun, Deb says there will be a gaggle of people there. Anywho, here is a pic of my new duds......John Travolta's got noth'n on these threads :^)